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Transportation

"The United States is sending a heavy icebreaker to help free an Australian fishing boat with 27 people on board that has been stranded since Tuesday in the icy Antarctic seas, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Wednesday."

"Anthony Foxx, U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Monday issued a report titled “Beyond Traffic: Trends and Choices 2045” that he hopes will open a national conversation leading to better transportation and stronger infrastructure across the United States."

"NEW YORK -- For the past 18 months, Americans from Albany to Oregon have voiced growing alarm over the rising number of oil-laden freight trains coursing through their cities, a trend they fear is endangering public safety."

"Regulators in the United States knew they had to act fast. A train hauling 2 million gallons of crude oil from North Dakota had exploded in the Canadian town of Lac-Megantic, killing 47 people. Now they had to assure Americans a similar disaster wouldn’t happen south of the border, where the U.S. oil boom is sending highly volatile crude oil every day over aging, often defective rails in vulnerable railcars."

Journalists hurrying to get up to speed on environmental or energy issues can get objective background from reports by the Congressional Research Service (an arm of the Library of Congress), which does not release them to the taxpaying public that funded them. We thank the Federation of American Scientists' Government Secrecy Project for publishing them.

"A ProPublica analysis of federal government data adds new details to what’s known about the routes taken by trains carrying crude oil. Local governments are often unaware of the potential dangers they face."